Essendon VFL will be hoping the confidence gained from AFL experience late in the season will be a valuable addition ahead of this Saturday’s elimination final.

The Bombers will welcome back Conor McKenna, Jackson Merrett, Jake Long and Nick Kommer for the game against Geelong.

VFL coach Matthew Egan said the boys are excited for finals action after building such momentum across the AFL and VFL last weekend.

“To get some experienced players back and some really talented players that were playing really good VFL footy before they got AFL opportunity is fantastic,” Egan said.

“We are excited to have them back and hopefully they bring their confidence from the AFL and put it into the VFL program.”

Essendon has won their last three games of the season against Williamstown, North Ballarat and the Northern Blues.

The Cats will be a massive challenge but Egan will go in with a lot of confidence from the Bombers recent form.

“We won’t change too much to be honest, we had a good look at Geelong’s game on Sunday and we will watch the game again this week,” he said.

“They are a talented outfit with some really experienced players, we know how they play but it’s important we play our own brand and style.

“I think we have a really talented team that we have mixed up a little bit, I’m confident we can play our style and put it all together at once that happens anything is possible.

“I want the players to believe that we can go as far as we want to – it’s going to be a great challenge so hopefully they are excited and pumped up to play in a final.”

The coaching staff won’t pay too much attention to the recent outing against the Cats, a 78-point loss at Simonds Stadium in Round 16.

“That game it was one of our worst games for the year and we really struggled to score and they scored at will,” Egan said.

“Obviously you need to know why they were able to do that and their players strengths and weaknesses, but you don’t want to put it all into the opposition, you need to concentrate on what we do well.”

The Bombers will have 17 AFL-listed players to pick from this week including James Polkinghorne, Jackson Merrett, Jake Long, Conor McKenna, Aaron Francis, Mark Jamar, Alex Morgan, Jason Ashby, Shaun Edwards, Sam Michael, Mason Redman, Yestin Eades, Gach Nyuon, Nick Kommer, Will Hams, Shaun McKernan and Tom Wallis.

The Bombers will take on Geelong on Saturday, September 3 at North Port Oval from 2.40pm. The game will be broadcast live on Channel 7.